


the great monkey armour discourse of 2011

by 101places



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Gen, Humor, Like. I hope???, Lots of misc agents appear but like... just because I needed more people, Peggy Carter (mentioned) - Freeform, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, SciOps, Someone please give this boy a monkey, Steve Rogers (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 15:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18552160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/101places/pseuds/101places
Summary: In the Arctic, a national hero has been discovered in the ice. Meanwhile, in a SHIELD SciOps facility Jemma Simmons questions her sanity.( AKA: Fitz really wants a monkey and also to stage a coup )





	the great monkey armour discourse of 2011

**Author's Note:**

> so i got an idea a while ago to make one-shots about various aos characters, tying in to each mcu movie. i was gonna go in chronological order, but then this wouldn't leave my head and here we are
> 
> the tag says post-captain america but it's really more during captain america?? idk man after they find mr america but before he's thawed
> 
> also i have no clue what this is. at least it's less depressing than the stuff i usually write!!

It wasn’t unusual for Simmons to stay awake in the lab late, too caught up in her current project to even consider going to sleep. Currently, she was working on a project that had stumped her for a while, and knew that she was on the verge of a breakthrough. If she stopped now, who knew how long it would take her to get back into the swing of things?

So caught up in her groove, she failed to notice the lights in the corridor outside bursting into life, or the bustle that was definitely atypical for 2am on a weekday. She continued her work completely oblivious, until the door to the lab crashed open.

Simmons jumped as she was pulled out of her hyper-focus, turning to give a glare to the lab tech who had disturbed her.

Surprisingly, the lab tech didn’t seem at all put off by Simmons blatant frustration. Instead, she looked at her with wide, excited eyes, “Haven’t you heard the news?”

“What news?” Simmons saved her work and stepped away from her computer, sadly resigning herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to put in any more work tonight if there had been some sort of incident.

“Captain America! They found him.”

...Huh.

“What do you mean they found him?” Everyone knew about Captain America- the war-time hero- but Simmons had gone through a phase of particular fixation on Peggy Carter when she was thirteen, so she liked to consider herself more informed than most.

“I don’t know the specifics- we’re having an emergency briefing. You should find your partner and get to mission control.”

With those parting words, the lab tech sped off.

Simmons watched after her for a moment, before shrugging off her lab coat and walking quickly towards the dormitories, her mind buzzing.

The most logical conclusion to come to would be that, finally, Captain America’s body had been recovered. He would be able to put to rest properly, and the world could move on, knowing what had happened to its first superhero. However… one shouldn’t underestimate the effects of Erskine’s super-soldier serum. Simmons had studied it in the past, and though she couldn’t be sure, she would consider it likely that it could have preserved the Captain’s body.

There was a chance that Captain America could still be very much alive.

Simmons wondered how Peggy Carter would react to this news.

Simmons had made it to Fitz’s dorm, and she pushed the door open without bothering to knock. She knew Fitz well, and knew that he could sleep through anything- if she waited for him to respond to a knock, they would certainly miss the emergency briefing, and then they would have to try to get their information from less reliable sources.

So instead she strode across his room and towards his bed, reaching down and pulling his blanket off of him in one fast movement.

Unfortunately, Fitz had been rather tangled in his blanket, and the sudden movement caused him to tumble out of his bed and hit the floor with a rather painful-sounding crash. Simmons winced, but supposed that now she at least wouldn’t have to come up with more creative methods of waking him.

Fitz pulled himself upright, looking around with a startled expression and blinking frantically as he tried to work out what had just happened. When his gaze landed on her, he scowled.

“What the  _ hell _ , Simmons?” He exclaimed, “I was having a  _ lovely _ dream! We had our own pet monkey, Simmons, and you just tore it from my arms like some sort of monster.”

“Yes, yes,” Simmons had already turned around, sorting through his clothes and throwing an outfit at him. “Get dressed, quickly.”

“I don’t think I want to. If I go back to sleep now, I might be able to get little Charley back.” Fitz grumbled, but pulled his shirt over his head anyway. 

Simmons turned her back to let him change fully, taking the time to skim over some of the blueprints he had pinned up to the wall, making mental notes of any helpful adjustments she could make. One in particular stood out to her- some sort of taser, by the looks of things. Instead of worrying about getting the right electricity flow to do what was intended, Simmons wondered if she could determine a dose of dendrotoxin that could do the same.

“Alright, I’m dressed. What was so important that you had to take me from the few hours of happiness I get?”

Simmons turned around and smiled at him, before bouncing out of the room. Fitz followed behind her obediently, shutting his door behind him.

“An emergency briefing,” Simmons explained, “I don’t have the full story yet. All I know is, apparently, they’ve found Captain America.”

“Great. You woke me up at 3am for a dead 90-year-old.” Fitz grumped, but Simmons knew he was more interested than he seemed.

“That’s the thing, Fitz! Why would we be going to an emergency briefing at this time if all they found was a body?”

“Maybe because they hate Sci-Techs.”

Simmons rolled her eyes, but before she was given a chance to continue the argument, they reached the briefing room. The pair squeezed in through the door, claiming their typical seats beside one another.

The room gave off infectious energy- partly due to the snippets of information that the agents were able to gather from one another, but also partly due to the time. Everything seemed that much stranger in the middle of the night.

The door opened and closed, and a tired-looking agent walked in. The agent stood in front of them all, and then began the briefing.

“I am sure you have all heard the rumours, so I’ll keep this brief. Last night at 2300 hours, a fallen aircraft was found in the Arctic. Within that craft was found a shield… and the shield’s owner, one Captain Steve Rogers, more commonly known as Captain America. Currently, Captain Rogers is being held in a SHIELD facility, location classified. All agents are to remain on stand-by until further notice. You are dismissed until you receive further orders.”

And with that, the agent left the room again.

“That was it…!? That didn’t answer anything! That doesn’t even tell us if he’s alive! What, are we just supposed to wait around now on the off-chance that we’re needed?” Simmons looked up at Fitz, expecting him to be ready to continue her complaints, but was surprised to see him with a focussed expression.

Simmons hadn’t heard anything in that pathetic excuse for a briefing that was worth her energy, but apparently Fitz had. “Just, um. Come with me?”

The two left mission control, making a stop back at Fitz’s dorm for a six-pack of beer (“It’s going to be a long night, Simmons.”), before finishing the round-trip back at the lab, where a handful of other lab techs were mingling. Apparently the consensus was ‘If we have to be awake, we might as well get some work done out of it’.

Fitz set the pack of beer on one a counter, grabbing one as he headed over to his cluttered work station.

Simmons gave him a look, “This is so against protocol- and basic health and safety. Food and drink stays outside the lab.”

“No one’s working with anything sensitive right now,” Fitz replied, searching through stacks of papers, “So it’s fine.”

It was the principle of the thing that really bothered Simmons- if there was a rule, one should follow it regardless of whether it was, strictly speaking, currently necessary or not. Though, judging by Fitz’s behaviour, she reasoned that she’d need to save her energy in case she needed to talk him out of something more dire later on into the night.

“You know, if you organised your work you would be able to find things far more easily.” Simmons commented, strolling over and watching his search.

Fitz didn’t grace that with a reply, holding up the paper he had been searching for triumphantly. He hunched over it at his desk, adding annotations to whatever it was, moving his body to prevent Simmons from seeing whenever she made an attempt.

Finally, she gave up and walked back to her own workspace with a roll of her eyes, muttering something under her breath about how childish he was being, deciding that she might as well continue on with what she had been doing before this whole event started. At least now no one would criticise her for staying awake.

Around half an hour later Simmons was forced to pause in her work. She needed to compare the current design she was working on to one of the prototype models, and it seemed that she had neglected to back said model up to her hard-drive. She could envision exactly where the blueprint was back in her dorm, and it wouldn’t take too long to grab it and return. She was sure that nothing would happen while she was gone.

She considered saying something to Fitz before slipping out, but he seemed to be focussing intensely on his work. She doubted that he’d even notice that she was gone. She did, however, note the number of empty beer cans beside him had greatly increased since she’d last looked. Well, if it kept him awake then she supposed that was fine.

It was strange, walking down the corridor so late and seeing life in every room she passed. The atmosphere was unlike anything she had ever felt before- everyone was nervous, excited. Everyone knew that while this could just be nothing, it could also be everything. It felt like they were on the precipice of something incredible.

She made it back to her room without incidence, gracefully avoiding the mess on her floor (which she’d have to do something about, sometime soon) and reaching her filing cabinet. She pulled open the drawer, thumbing through her files until she reached ‘p’ for ‘prototype’. She skimmed through the documents, making some mental notes of future improvements she could test, until she reached the one she had set out to find.

With her prize in hand, Simmons left her room,. She began to head back to the lab, but paused outside Fitz’s door, her thoughts heading back to that design she’d seen earlier. After a moments hesitation she turned the handle and pushed open the door.

She was only in the room for a few moments, quickly snatching up the blueprint and heading back out. With two projects in hand, she began the walk back to the lab, content that she had enough work to keep her occupied until they were either called into action, or allowed to stand down.

As she neared the lab, Simmons frowned. The atmosphere had changed. It felt as though someone had added fuel to the rising tension, causing it to rise to bursting. Simmons couldn’t have been gone for much longer than five minutes- what on Earth could have happened in that time?

Coming closer, Simmons was able to see into the lab through the window in the door, and her heart sank when she saw the source of the commotion that had caused this avalanche.

Standing on top of a chair with a decent crowd of lab techs surrounding him was Fitz. He was gesturing wildly and barely paused to breathe. Simmons hurried her pace and entered the room so she could hear what he was saying.

“...just think! The possibilities would be endless!” Fitz said, “Think of all of your projects- everything you’ve had to scrap or- or come up with ingenious work arounds. Think of all of the time that’s been wasted, or all of the inventions that could’ve been just a little bit more durable.” 

Around the room, lab techs nodded in agreement.

“This is why we can’t just let this stand! We have to speak up- we have to let our superiors know what a  _ waste _ this is.”

Everyone seemed to be completely entranced by Fitz’s passionate speech, though Simmons still wasn’t sure what it was all about.

“We have to let them know that we won’t just stand by and let them continue on with this waste! We have to let them know that we can do better- and if they won’t listen, then we’ll just have to make them!”

Fitz had certainly drunk all of the beer he had brought with him, and it seemed that he had managed to find some from another source, too. Simmons was at a total loss as to how he had managed this in the few minutes she had been gone.

“Fitz,” Simmons finally spoke up, making her way through the sea of lab techs so she was standing next to him (or, to be more precise, below him. He was still precariously balanced atop a chair- which would be concerning enough from him when sober, if Simmons was completely honest), “What’s going on?”

“Jemma! You’re back!” His face lit up. Simmons wasn’t sure if she could recall the last time he’d used her first name. “I was wondering where you’d run off to. I thought you’d left.”

Simmons held up the blueprints she’d swiped, “I just needed these- but you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing?”

“Oh! I’m glad you asked! We’re going to stage a coup d'état!”

Simmons blinked slowly. “What.”

“We have to!” One of the lab techs behind her insisted, “If they keep it from us, then it’s the only choice we have left!”

The rest of the crowd nodded in affirmation.

For the first time, Simmons became aware of the empty cans all around the room. It seemed that Fitz wasn’t the only one present with a total disregard for basic lab safety rules.

“Okay.” Simmons tried again, “Please explain this to me from the beginning.”

Fitz nodded enthusiastically, however, it turned out that this nodding was a little bit  _ too _ enthusiastic, as his frantic movements caused his balance to fail. Simmons quickly reached up to steady him, and he clung onto her shoulder. After finding some sense of stability again, he carefully stepped down from the chair, and Simmons let out a relieved breath.

“Well,” Fitz began, looking her in the eye. “You know how much I love monkeys.”

“Yes…?”

“And I’ve been thinking- you keep talking about field work. I hate that thought. We’re not equipped for it, at all, but if we had a brave, specially trained monkey with us… maybe everything would be okay, you know?”

“There are so many flaws in what you just said, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Then I started to think- well, no matter how specially our monkey is trained, he could still get shot, or stabbed, or blown to pieces. Not even a very brave monkey would be safe out there, Jemma. So I’ve been coming up with designs for him. Designs for special little monkey armour, that would keep him safe and sound no matter what we go up against.”

“Setting aside the numerous logical fallacies in what you’re saying, what does this have to do with anything?”

“The armour! Jemma, the armour! The poor monkey, he wouldn’t be able to take two steps! I’ve looked at every known metal, every alloy- none of them would be light enough to efficiently protect him from everything that field work could throw at him. They all fail the simulations! Or, all of them except one.”

And, suddenly, Simmons understood what this was about.

“Vibranium.”

“Exactly!”

Simmons looked over at the crowd of lab techs. “And you’re all just willing to- to declare war against SHIELD to help Fitz make monkey armour?”

The lab tech closest to her started to laugh. “No, no. He’s totally gone with that one- but he has got a point. Vibranium could be used for so much more, they can’t just waste it on a shield.”

Simmons could understand the argument. Even just thinking of her own projects, there were so many that could benefit from vibranium. Just imagine, near weightless weapons- or, looking at a different angle, near weightless prosthetics, near weightless exoskeletons, or even as Fitz had been raving about, near weightless body armour. Vibranium opened up a whole new world of possibilities, and you’d have to be a fool to pass any of them up.

However… a coup d'état still seemed a bit much. Had drunkenness just caused her colleagues to totally forget how to trust in their superiors? It had only been a few hours since the shield had been found. Simmons was sure that it would be processed, and end up in the hands of whoever could make the most use in it.

“It’s been, what? Four hours? Can’t you wait a bit longer and see what happens before deciding to go all mad scientist on them?”

There was a murmur amongst the crowd, so Simmons continued.

“It’s highly likely- almost guaranteed, frankly- that we will be allowed to study the shield. Learn what you can about vibranium when that time comes, and that combined with your own independent research should give you enough information to at least attempt to recreate it. You can get what you need using the proper channels, you know.”

Simmons felt content as she saw nods amongst the crowd, however the feeling wasn’t given much time to settle.

One lab tech from the back of the crowd spoke up: “Or we could steal some from Wakanda!” Instantly, the crowd turned to its new spokesperson. “Come with me, we can plan it all out in the break room.”

The lab techs filed out of the room, and Simmons stared after them numbly.

“Why are all of our colleagues idiots?” She wondered, then recalled Fitz’s plan to start an uprising in SHIELD for monkey armour. “...Why are all of  _ my  _ colleagues idiots?”

Fitz stared at the door with a pout. “A monkey in armour could really keep us safe.”

Simmons sighed. “Field work is just an idea, Fitz. I doubt it would ever really work, anyway.”

Fitz looked over at her and squinted, before grabbing at the blueprint she’d stolen from his room. “This is mine. What are you doing with the Night-Night gun?”

Simmons couldn’t help but laugh. “You want to call it the Night-Night gun?”

“Yes! Why not?” Fitz sounded defensive.

“I’m sorry- just, can you imagine it? Some serious, grizzly specialist saying ‘I need to go and grab my Night-Night gun’?”

“Yes, I can. What’s so funny about that?”

“...Doesn’t matter. We’ll workshop the name later.”

“We?”

“I had some suggestions.”

Simmons set the blueprint down on the desk in front of them, and began to list off her ideas, bantering back and forth with Fitz throughout the night. She was unsure if he’d remember any of this come the morning, but that was fine by her- she didn’t mind repeating herself.

Discussing projects with Fitz was always a pleasant way to spend the nights- even one like this, where it felt as though the world was on the verge of something amazing.

Who better to step into a new age with, anyway?


End file.
